MPEG-DASH (Moving Picture Experts Group-Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP, hereinafter, referred to as DASH) that uses the same HTTP as the HTTP for the browsing of web sites and the like is known as a moving picture distribution protocol that can be used in moving picture distribution through the Internet and is standardized internationally (for example, refer to NPL 1).
An adaptive streaming technique is realized in DASH. That is, a content supply side is made to prepare a plurality of streams that have content with identical detail, the image quality, the size of the angle of view and the like of which have been altered depending on a communication environment, and reception capacity and state of the Internet that forms a distribution pass. Meanwhile, a reception side can acquire and reproduce the most suitable streams through selection depending on the communication environment and self decoding capacity of the Internet from among a plurality of streams that the content supply side prepares.
In this manner, in DASH, metafiles, which are referred to as Media Presentation Descriptions (MPDs), are supplied to the reception side from the supply source so that the reception side can acquire streams through adaptive selection.
In MPDs, addresses (url information) of supply sources of streaming data (media data of Audio/Video/Subtitles and the like) of content that is chunked are defined. The reception side requests streaming data by accessing a predetermined server that will be the supply source of content on the basis of the url information, and the reception and reproduction of streaming data for which HTTP distribution is performed depending on the request is possible.
FIG. 1 shows an example of a configuration of a content supply system that performs streaming distribution of content on the basis of DASH.
The content supply system 10 is configured by multiple DASH clients 30 on a side that receives content being connected with a plurality of content supply devices 20 (20A, 20B and 20C in this case) on a side that supplies content, using the Internet 11.
The content supply device 20A distributes content with identical detail as a Channel A using a plurality of streams. The content supply device 20B distributes content with identical detail that differs from the content of the Channel A as a Channel B using a plurality of streams. The same applies to the content supply device 20C. Hereinafter, in cases in which it is not necessary to individually discriminate between the content supply devices 20A, 20B and 20C, the content supply devices will simply be referred to as the content supply devices 20.
The content supply devices 20 include a content management server 21, a DASH segment streamer 22, and a DASH/MPD server 23.
The content management server 21 manages content that is supplied to the DASH client 30, generates a plurality of items of streaming data with differing bit rates from content with identical detail, and outputs the streaming data to the DASH segment streamer 22. The DASH segment streamer 22 divides each item of streaming data into segments in a temporal manner, respectively saves the segments through conversion into files, and notifies the DASH/MPD server 23 of the addresses of the supply sources of the files. Furthermore, the DASH segment streamer 22 performs the HTTP distribution of the files of the segmented streaming data as an HTTP server depending on requests from the DASH client 30 on the reception side.
The DASH/MPD server 23 generates an MPD in which addresses and the like that show the supply source of files of (segments of) the plurality of items of streaming data are defined, and performs the HTTP distribution of the MPD depending on requests from the DASH client 30 of the reception side.
The DASH client 30 makes a request from the DASH/MPD server 23, requests streaming data from the DASH segment streamer 22 on the basis of the MPD for which HTTP distribution is performed, and receives and reproduces files for which HTTP distribution is performed depending on the requests.
Additionally, in place of the DASH/MPD server 23 or the DASH segment streamer 22, a cache server (not shown in the drawings) is also provided on the Internet 11 so that the HTTP distribution of cached MPDs and segmented streaming data is performed.